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or: How To Sell T-Shirts Online

Most people interested in making money online start out by selling services, as affiliate marketers, play with AdSense, or resell info products  like eBooks in whatever niche they are in. Usually the goal is to one day sell an actual physical product such as DVD which has a much higher perceived value (= profit) than any product you can download.

The way I started out is almost reversed – my first product was actually a physical product: I sold geeky t-shirts with unique designs. Well, I haven’t touched these shirt sites since I set them up years ago but I am still selling them on autopilot. And the best: except for investing into domain name this was down for free.
Let me explain…

Back in 2002 I was inspired to design Mac related t-shirts. At the time I had ordered some cool shirts from the legendary MacSurfShop.com and was frequently asked by strangers where to get them. Since MacSurfShop.com closed a few months later I started designing my own t-shirts and offered them through two sites: Zazzle.com and CafePress.com. All I had to do was design a graphic or slogan, upload my graphic file, and pick a product like t-shirts, mugs etc. I wanted to feature my design. I compared the product quality of both sites and decided at the time to go with CafePress.

The Mac related designs were simple (or should I say embarrassing…) and did not sell. Ironically, another design that I had created just for myself with no commercial intentions caught some attention and started selling instead… Its the design of a the structural formula of a caffeine molecule – and it’s still selling at CaffeineShirt.com.

I did not use the “shop” or “premium” option with a dedicated website and monthly fee – instead I used the free accounts and build my own simple shop website featuring the products. Next step was an AdWords campaign to drive traffic via CPC (cost-per-click) to the site…
Years later I added related designs I liked and that were selling as well at CafePress.com to my site: if people didn’t like my design chances were that they clicked at least on the other designs. Ended they buying one of those shirts I would get a small affiliate commission. This simple change to my website doubled the income from the site within a few days. It was also my first experience with affiliate marketing.

While this single site didn’t make me rich it’s a constant source of income – even 7 years after the initial setup. Once the design is done and the products set up CafePress.com takes care of the rest: taking orders, production, shipping, customer service etc.

If you are somewhat creative and interested in starting something similar – here a few tips:

* In the meantime there are many more sites offering similar services. Cafepress.com and Zazzle.com offer a wide variety of products but if you are interested in focusing on t-shirts check out this blog post at webdesignerdepot.com – it lists 26 examples of online t-shirt shops. Always check t fine print reg. the rights of the designs you upload!

* When designing it’s an advantage to keep it simple: use only a few colors. This way you can go with “screen printing” as a production method which is cheaper and more durable than the heat transfer method used for more photo realistic designs. This way you also keep your options open – you could to get them manufactured at other places for very little money and sell them yourself directly. Of course then you will have to deal with inventory, shipping etc… While you might increase your profit drastically you would eliminate the “auto pilot” aspect…

* Usually the “store” or “premium options” at these sites are not that interesting (because too expensive) – especially when starting out. Unless you have a killer design you will be struggling to make any money.

* CafePress.com i.e. offers newsletter signup boxes: this allows potential customers to subscribe to your newsletter BUT you will never have real control over the list you build this way – i.e. there is no way to see or export these email addresses. So, instead I recommend to use your own auto-responder service to build a list of potential clients that’s truly yours. Of course this is also something you can also only do with your own store front website.

* Once you found a design that sells go ahead and duplicate I never did (don’t ask me why) – BIG mistake…

I hope this example shows you the variety of opportunities out there – that often can be started on a tiny budget. Personally I learned a lot from this experience – without even realizing it at first: from picking a “niche”, affiliate marketing, to list building.

Whichever route you chose to go: make sure not to get stuck in the research phase but take action and implement!

Best – Christoph